LINES AS NUMBERS,NUMBERS AS LINES


Faux and Gates’s work, according to Gates, does not represent the inspiration of Adinkra designs, the naming of their mathematical technology “Adinkra” being merely a coincidence[1].The manner in which they employ the mathematical technology they have developed, however, on account of their closeness of the colour schemes and line configurations to Classical Ashanti Adinkra, suggests the variability to which the Classical Adinkra symbols could be put. In Adinkrammatics, as its developers call it/ Faux and Gates’s work, black and white lines represent the most fundamental elements/particles of matter. The manner in which the patterns formed by these lines are manipulated is expressive of changing relationships between the equations that describe the phenomena the lines represent.

Just two lines? Black and while lines? To represent the two most fundamental elements of matter, fermions and bosons, according to the novel discipline of string theory and the effort to develop a unified understanding of all the laws of nature?

What?! If Gates and Faux can model sophisticated mathematical equations using a pattern formed of two lines, what could the Adinkra enthusiasts not be able to do with the more complex but also strikingly simple Adinkra designs?

In fact, Faux and Gates work showed striking similarities with the Adinkra design known as Nyansapon. The same prominent conjunction of groups of two lines, the suggestion of closed and open patterns also developed in their Adinkra technology, not to talk of the resemblance of their efforts at unravelling thorny mathematical challenges /problems to the understanding of Nyansapon as symbolising the wisdom represented by the tying and untying of a complicated knot. They were untying knots of mathematical reasoning, hoping through that, to unty the knots of meaning of relationship/s represented by the laws of nature.

Adinkra abounds in geometric forms, circles, lines, triangles, and other patterns. Could this mean that Adinkra represents a mine of mathematical possibilities? Possibilities beyond those conventionally associated with the designs?

[1] Interview:James Gates: Theoretical Physicist by Ziya Tong in Wired Science at http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/story/article/199 transcript_james_gates_extended_interview.html. Accessed 10th January 2007.

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